Despero
by Steeltalon
Summary: Five years ago, Harry was thrown into Azkaban. Now Dumbledore has come with a plea on his lips and an offer of freedom a few years early...but Harry has had five years to think, and his opinions are made clear.


Dumbledore was nervous. He was coming here, to Azkaban, to see an old student of his. He'd been sent here for opposing the old man when the Muggle and magical worlds had finally come together. Albus had thought that the Muggles would find them fascinating. What he'd forgotten was that it was human nature to reject what was seen as unnatural. To fear what one didn't understand. And now the whole world was paying the price.

As he stopped outside the young man's cell, he paused for just a moment. He had been very angry when he'd first been put in prison. He'd been very, very violent. There was no telling what his reaction would be to seeing the very man who had thrown him in here.

The prisoner looked up. Blue eyes met startlingly green, and the young man stood and paced to the cell door. Prison had changed Harry Potter – he moved with the silent grace of an experienced predator. The child of Lily and James no longer looked at Dumbledore with trust – instead there was a slow, simmering rage just beneath the surface of every movement, and Harry's eyes were narrowed suspiciously. When he spoke, his voice was low and even. "Evening, _Dumbledore_."

Albus resisted the urge to draw away. Harry had made his name sound like a vile curse with what seemed to be practiced ease. "Hello, Harry," he said. "Would you like to come out and walk with me for a while? There is something I must speak to you about."

Harry cracked his neck. "Whatever you have to say can be said here," the younger man said. "I don't want to have to talk to you more than absolutely necessary. Get on with it, or leave."

Dumbledore sighed softly. "I have come to request your aid, Harry," he began. "The world is in grave peril. Muggles and wizards are attacking each other more and more often, lately. We need you to help us pull the worlds apart. So, if you agree, I've arranged a meeting with the Minister of Magic, and we can get started right –"

"Oh, no, no, Dumbledore," Harry interrupted, the corners of his mouth twitching, making very serious threats to pull up into a mocking smile. Dumbledore swallowed hard. This wasn't a good sign. "I'm afraid I can't tell the Minister to separate the worlds again. I can't beg and plead for him to separate the Muggles and the magical communities. Not after you fought so hard to join the two."

He cocked his head, peering through the bars of his cell at the old man. "Do you see what you've done?" he asked, smirking faintly. Albus could guess what he was thinking: he was relishing how Dumbledore was finally paying the heavy price for his ideal world. "By joining two very different worlds…you've destroyed a delicate balance." Harry breathed. He licked his lips and leaned toward Dumbledore. "You've changed things. Forever. Are you finally seeing the consequences? There's no going back – no changing what you've done."

The grin finally spread across his face, his impossibly green eyes practically _glowing_ with mirth and triumph. "Are you finally seeing why Lucius, Tom, and the other Death Eaters fought so hard to keep the worlds separate? Are you finally seeing how Muggles think of us? To them…we're freaks. We're unnatural; we should be destroyed for our magic."

"I realize I made a mistake," Dumbledore began, but Harry cut him off.

"A missstake?" the young man hissed, his Parseltongue ability accenting his words heavily as his anger was finally given voice. "Just a missstake?! You don't know what you've done! I've told you before – I sssay it again now: You damned usss all, old man. You've doomed usss – practically agreed to our exsssecutionsss! And now you asssk me to sssave you all yet again? Go jump off a thirty-ssstory building!"

"I beg you, Harry…reconsider," Dumbledore said softly.

Harry sneered. "Oh, I have. I've had five years to think, Dumbledore. Five years in this hell-hole, and three more to go. I tell you again – go jump off a building. I will not help you."

Dumbledore left, with the first seeds of despair beginning to take root in his heart.

He came back twice more to plead with Harry, before his old age finally caught up with him. He faded away during a fitful sleep, riddled with the knowledge that he had destroyed the world he had fought to protect from the man who had the right idea all along.

Wizards were persecuted all over the globe for another year, before Lucius Malfoy visited Harry to talk with the young man. He visited often, and eventually coaxed the young man into agreeing to help protect the wizarding world.

Muggle deaths skyrocketed that year. Fear swept through the wizarding world.

Dumbledore had forgotten one thing – part of Tom Riddle lived on in Harry Potter. A few months after his rescue from Azkaban, Harry helped the piece of the Dark Lord's soul regain a new body.

And so the cycle began again. Except for a tiny detail that fed the terror of the wizarding population.

This time, their savior wasn't there to help them.

This time, their savior was _helping_ the Dark Lord kill off Muggles.

This time, they had no hope of defeating Lord Voldemort.

And without Harry Potter, their fate was sealed.

**-0-0-0-**

**Bored yet again - and this is what comes of it. XD I wrote this with a pounding headache, so if it's not that great, I apologize.**


End file.
